The NIL Expert - Eddie Edwards - Part 2 of 2

0:00And now, it's the Better with Bourbon Podcast, with Brad Martino and Deacon Palmer, Fast Thinking, and Smooth Drinking. The views and opinions shared on the Better with Bourbon Podcast are our own and those of our guests. Nothing we discuss should be taken as financial, legal, business, or gambling advice. Don't make investment, business, or betting decisions based on our conversations as you should always talk to a qualified professional. Always drink responsibly, never drink and drive, and only consume alcohol if you are of legal drinking age. And they can't place us inside the restaurant. So what they do is they place us up in the stowaway balconies. And this room had to be no less than 85 degrees. So we have this beautiful, it's almost pleasant.

1:00Yeah, several course meal jackets on felt like we were in a sauna. I was about ready to go out and roll in the snow, but it was 15 degrees below, so I wasn't that desperate. Well, hey, and the other thing that was awesome this week is we got a bunch of new friends. Rodney, did Rodney tell you? No. We got great news to talk about when we're done. We can't do it on camera here. Hey, episode four. Welcome to Better with Bourbon, where Fast Thinking meets Smooth Drinking. It is February 9th, we're in Indiana, Pennsylvania. And we get a great show for you tonight. Lots going on in the sports world. So we're going to do a couple of sports conversations. We're going to talk about what's going on. A couple of big things happened this week. Everybody's talking about it. You can guess what they are. We're going to talk a little bit about our penguins because, you know, you know, with the Olympics going on and Sydney having the spotlight on them. We're going to highlight what he's doing in his day job, which is excellent. We're going to talk a little bit about the business of Bourbon tonight. It was a big deal. Brad's going to lead us through, you know, one of the higher profile deals,

2:02deals in the Bourbon space over the last little while. I'm ready to learn about it. So I hope you are too. Topic one tonight. We're going to start with something that's near and dear to our heart. Golf. We haven't talked very much about golf in the first few episodes because it's the damn dead middle of winter and it hasn't. But today was a warmest day we've had in Pennsylvania since we started doing this. And it was what, 31 maybe? It was like a heat wave. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Joe DiNardo. I felt like it. Only to Pittsburgh crowd would know he'd joke about it. Partly cloudy in my own. Right. He says it just like one of the, that dress just accents the whole weather. I'm going to have to stop wearing the dress. It's too distracting to me. It is. Keep us focused. If you were, if you were killing time getting ready for the Super Bowl to start the other night, probably you were watching the, uh, the waste management out of Phoenix, which is the biggest party in golf, uh, every year. It makes headlines not only for the quality of play, but for some of the shenanigans associated with, uh, with that party, you get a lot of the students from, uh, Phoenix area coming out.

3:05I think last year, no joke. They actually ran out of beer. The state of Arizona ran out of beer because I almost wasn't being drunk at the thing. So, uh, you know, sports fans after our own heart. Um, this year, uh, we had kind of an exciting finish. And that's been come one of the marks of the waste management open is, uh, is playoffs. And the question of playoff every year, that course is gettable. Well, and the other mark of the playoff is Hadecki being in it. It seems like that he owns that tournament. Poor guy. I mean, I just, Hadecki, he probably should have won. He's got the best, well, one of the best short games in, in the business, particularly with the putter. And you can see him dominate in the greens, but the poor guy can't hit the ball off the damn tee. The control is driver. He'd probably be right up there banging on Sheffler to be, you know, top player in the world. But he can't hit the ball off the damn tee. Well, he didn't on number 18, at least not on 18 and not in the playoff on 18. So, they cost him. That was a mess. And he, he had, he took, uh, hit the ball long and left.

4:08I was on the front nine, two days in a row, took an unplayable or penalty stroke, two rounds in a row. Um, and he had made a number of other kind of critical driving errors that, that cost him late. But, uh, ultimately, our boy gottrip, I, this is horrible of me as a golf fan. I don't even know what gottrip's first name is, do you? No, but I've seen him on the leaderboard. Uh, the name's familiar because I've seen it on the leaderboard. I just put it that way. He's last name. Well, so I think he's been making an impact. I really haven't looked into him that much, but he certainly had one heck of a back nine. Yeah. You, uh, be, what, he birdied, uh, five of the last six, including the last four, birdied in from 15. That's what you finish. You serious? Well, the reason you know his name is, because this was actually a second one of the year. He won the Sony Open in January. Oh, there you go. We've had five starts this year. He's won two of them. Interestingly, the kid had, uh, about eight million dollars in career earnings coming into this year. And he's won three and a half already this year.

5:09So, so he's cash in checks in a Sheffler fashion. Not sure what his new year's resolution is, but I think he almost did it by ground dog day. Yeah, no joke. And, you know, there's some takeaways here that, you know, as we get closer to the golf season and we get closer. You know, next week's the AT&T from Pepple Beach, which is a place very near and dear to every golfer's heart. Um, it's not long before we start seeing commercials for the masters. Jim Nansen. Hello, friends. You know, I mean, is there, is there a warmer welcome to a sporting event than that? No. I mean, no, not at all. That's just what we love. But a couple of takeaways here. Um, Sheffler is never out of it. He didn't even play well. He's still almost won. I've never seen Scott. He gets so frustrated that first day or two when he was actually throwing clubs, kind of slamming. I mean, and missing, you know, chip shots that he never, he looked like me out there a couple of times. And, you know, it's good to see he's actually human because, you know, he always has that in my mind. He always just had that leave even keel and even even him blowing up is not really blowing up compared to some of the other players on the tour.

6:12I mean, it's pretty mild, but it's just to see him get frustrated like he did. But at the end of the day, he was still in the top 10 fighting, fighting his way up there. Well, you talk about his demeanor. Remember when he got arrested? Yeah. And he actually apologized to the police officer who arrested him by accident. He's like, hey, I'm going to work. Doesn't matter what you're doing, buddy. You're coming with me. I mean, he's exactly how you want your criminal defendant to be treated. Exactly. Exactly. But I got to. Okay. So Matsuyama, Hadecki Matsuyama had a couple of really unfortunate incidents happen where fans, once was clearly intentional, once I think was reported as it might have been an accident. But he had to pull off the ball a couple of times because of noise. And the waste management is known for these sort of shenanigans, right? I mean, this is a place where you got a lot of non-golf fans coming to participate in the party specifically to get boozed up and then go watch the Super Bowl. Well, it's like going into a rock concert. Yeah, exactly. You open the gates in the morning.

7:12Yeah, it's exactly. They're kind of leading into it. And I almost think this tournament, maybe maybe it's not, was the inspiration for the live tour. But, you know, making a lot of sense. It could. But nevertheless, what happened, I think, to him on 18 was all those fans that were partying on 16 migrated their way over. And you saw some of those towers of beer cups. I mean, they left no beer, you know, left behind. So it had an effect to the tournament. It's a damn shame when a guy is putting a win. You know, how many chances you get to win a PGA tournament in your life? He has a putt to actually win the tournament. Granted, it was from distance, but he had to pull off that because some A hole yelled out. Now, I want to call out something else. I wasn't aware of this during the event, but found out about it today. There's some influencer kid that is famous for that. I understand flipping a bottle, you know, he'll take a water bottle, flipping there and making land. But so he's turned this into a multi-million dollar industry. And this kid is really well known to the youth of America who I weep for after. I mean, if this is your role model, you get something wrong with you.

8:14But this kid went up to some other A hole kid on, I'm not sure what hole and said, Hey, I'll give you a hundred bucks if you yelling and guys backswing. And the kid did it and they both got kicked out. This is the kind of thing where I wish whoever's monetized in that kid with his content would find a way to say, you know, if the police get involved in some stunt you're doing to try to make money, not only are we not letting you monetize that, but we're going to penalize you some other way. I mean, that shit has to stop. It has to stop. It'll actually make a fortune on that video. It makes me, it makes me want to vomit. We were trying to talk about stuff that matters and, you know, we're, you know, we're doing great. But this kid, you know, just behavior like that is no place in the world. And he's not the only one to do it. There's millions of these things. So I think you and I can have a debate on the, on the whole respect of the game as to why the fans that are observing should be quiet through a goal for shot. You know, it's been tradition. I know that I'm just going to touch on it real quickly. But that's changed. So now with the live tour and then rowing up the writer cup,

9:17you know, you can go through all these other examples that are kind of starting to evolve in the game. Maybe it's becoming more familiar to the younger generations that this is acceptable. So what we're going to give him the benefit out that that was okay. I think they know better when the quiet signs are up. And people are giving them dirty looks. And they have obviously the police are escorting them out and they get a lifetime ban. But, you know, it's, it's maybe it's part of the game. Well, maybe it has to be part of the game that the players have to come to realize if it's going to be an entertainment business like any other. And you're going to make it enjoyable for the fans. Maybe you have to be able to put in play or hit your T shot and your, your other shots with a little bit of noise in the background. Well, now that is a perspective I did not expect out of traditional like yourself. And, and a fine golfer in your own right, Bradley. I mean, I've seen you go low. I mean, under par. You know, I'm not that great of a traditional list. I still believe that a divot in the fairway is grown under root pair. This is a guy who plays golf in slides. Okay.

10:19So we've all seen. It's a pretty relaxed golfer. Shout out to Bill Franzer. He's never, he's never seen again. He didn't like it. If it's on the green, he's picking it up. That's good. That's good. That's good. Let's move on. Okay. Yeah. Okay. One, one, one take away though. I, this, this kid, the Bjornson, he was in a lead come down. He's, this kid's fire. He's, he is on my list of people I want to watch throughout the year. This kid can really hit the ball. And I think he led the PGA tour in Green's regulation last year. Solid player fun to watch. Anyway, that's my, that was my takeaway. He was solid. Yeah, great performance. All right. I want to talk about the penguins real quick. Our Pittsburgh penguins do a little local flavor in this sports recap. You know, I know we're on a break here for the Olympics, which is important. So the NHL has to take off because all these guys are not playing the Olympics. But coming into the Olympic break, the penguins went last 10 games, seven, one and two. Okay. And right now, second in the Metro division, fifth overall in the conference. They're playing really good hockey.

11:19And it's not just Crosby. Crosby's having a great year and his scoring goals. But we're even getting output from Malcolm, who let me see what the stats are here. Markins got 44, the 44 points in 41 games. Crosby has 59 points and 56 games year to date. This is crazy. Those are, those are crazy numbers guys like our age. I know. And that's what make it even more remarkable or it. So I think he's going to definitely hit that mark that we talked about in one of our previous episodes. But yeah, he might, I mean, that 90 point mark we talked about. Honestly, if he comes back and stays healthy, who knows? He might do 100 points for the year. The interesting piece this year that I actually had to do some read knob on because I, you know, I haven't been able to sit down and really devote myself to the pen so far. This year, which is absolutely going to happen after the Olympics, because now I'm really interested. They picked up this guy named Manta, who's the right wing. He's playing on Malkins right hand side. This is great big giant dude who now parks himself in front of the goal and has really.

12:19Kind of kicked Malkin into a into a new gear for the year. So Malkins interested, but this, this kid 20 goals, 22 assists year to date. So he's kind of filling that role that maybe Gensel did before we lost him and you have that third contributor. And, you know, that's kind of what the pens need. You need that third point score traditionally to get us going, right? Chemistry seems to be working. Yeah. So I'm, we're watching the penguins. We're following the penguins. We're going to move on. But again, as we move toward the back half of the season and the playoffs, it's really important that we continue to support. Sid and Gino, because who knows how much longer we got him, right? Yeah. It's like when Ben left. It is, you know, you know, you know, they're still performing at such a high level, but how much longer can their bodies take it? I've been saying for years, you know, this is the year they're going to have to rebuild. They're going to have to bottom out and rebuild and start over. But they just keep, they just keep their like the Steelers to keep making a playoffs. Cross, it's cross me. Yeah. Cross me just either he won't, he won't give up. He doesn't want to quit. No, there's amazing.

13:19Yeah, his work ethic is pretty much unmatched. All right. You want to kick it forward. You want to do a little bit of Olympics. Nice segue from hockey to winter Olympics. Okay. It's an easy one, right? Yeah. Well, they're going to be playing hockey in the Olympics. Okay. So, so far, US Olympic count. Now, keep in mind, we're shooting this tonight on Monday of this week, little earlier than normal. So by the time you guys get it, hopefully we will have advanced a little bit in that metal count and some, some more excitement will have made his way through. But a couple of big headlines so far. Let me roll through these really quickly. And then you pick whichever one you want to dig into and we talk about it. All right. Men's team figure skating might be the last time they never makes it on the podcast. Men's team figure skating. No, I don't think so. That's one of my favorites. And he hit it. And my boy was he good. Ilya Malinin, the quad god. I was interested in this kid for two reasons. Number one, he's from the DC areas from Vienna, Virginia, right, right outside DC, which you know, I, you know, kind of a semi resident of the DC metro area. But number two, you see this kid on TV.

14:19I don't want his skincare regime is, but we got a dig on that. The kids you should reach out. I mean, the kids face is like porcelain. I know it is. He's like a, and not only that, but he was almost perfect in every. Oh, every one of his part of every part of his performance. He was, he was amazing. And I know Perry was admiring his outfit. The glitter was just, you know, shining. Definitely the quads. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know. In the glutes. Yeah. Well, I did watch the, you know, he had some pretty stiff competition. This little, this little Japanese kid who looked like he would, couldn't have been more than five feet tall. When he finished his program, you know, I think maybe he over, it was beautiful to watch, you know, landed all this stuff really good. But I think he might have overplayed his hand a little bit. I think he was kind of over indexing on it. If I just celebrate like I just knocked a ball out of the park, they're going to score me as such. And then, I mean, came in and dunked on him and took the gold, which I thought was awesome. It was really neat. But we've probably talked about figure skating enough.

15:20No, but we needed that. Yeah, you got to do it. No, but we need that gold. You know, it was a big gold medal. Women's downhill. I mean, obviously here, Lindsey Vaughn is what everybody's talking about. But in spite of that tragedy, U.S. still took gold there. Great name of the gal that won gold. Breezy Johnson. What a great name, right? That's a sports name. I just, you know what I want. I wish somebody would have said to Lindsey Vaughn, you know, you're at the top of the sport. You're probably the most recognizable winner athlete of the last several generations, male or female. You have gold. You already got a titanium rod in one leg. Now that you've ripped the ACL and the other leg, maybe you shouldn't ski, right? Now she broke the other, you know, I don't know. I don't know if it was the same leg or not the same leg, but it was separate leg. So now she's going to have titanium in both legs. And I just think to myself, she could ruin the rest of her life. She's 40 years old. She's going to have to wear a fishnets for the rest of her life, right? I agree. I'm a big fan.

16:20I was saying the same thing, Deacon. I said to my wife, you know, I can't believe her doctors let her go. Especially after the ACL because that, you know, you know, the knee is weak to begin with. They said that she caught a pole in the gate or something. Yeah. You had a brace on it. Yeah, she had a false sense of security and obviously it didn't last. Well, that woman's fearless. I mean, you got to be a little, you got to be a little good question. Yeah, got to be a little bit crazy to get into that sport in the first place. But I mean, she knows no bounds. No. Women's hockey, look dominant, beating a crap out of Finland and Switzerland. Men's hockey starts Thursday. In our group, we got Latvia, Denmark and Germany. We are broadly expected to shred those three and move on and contend for one of the medals, kind of the favorites here. Our Canada, US, Sweden, Finland makes sense, right?

17:20Right, but Canada, big, big favorite there. But look, one of the things that I'm totally captivated by is curling. Today, I was watching curling while I was doing research for the show and it was the, this was the, the, the mixed doubles. US team was up against the defending gold medalist from Italy. The gal on the Italian team is from Cortina, right? And they're the defending Olympic gold medalist. Nailbiter of a match couldn't tell you anything about what happened because I don't understand the damn rules. But I know that we won on the last throw. On the last throw, the last, I guess you call it throw or a slide in the last set or frame or whatever the hell it is, it was the end of the match. And our homeboy who had a great match, I don't know what his name was, but he's from Duluth, Minnesota. They kept showing Duluth, Minnesota, expecting the people up there to party every time they'd show the camera. And they wanted somebody to jump around. Everybody would kind of go like this, you know, it was kind of, so God bless you, Minnesota.

18:20But curling has got me totally captivated. And I'm thinking, hopefully, if we can put it together technically, next week we might have a special guest come on and give us a little bit of an education about what curling is and how it works. Did you catch any curling? No, but I could envision you being the guy that does the grooming. Does the broom. Well, I mean, I think if you throw it, you got a broom. It's a two way thing. It's like you can't, it's like, yeah, if you hit the driver, you got to hit your own putt, too. So there's not a separate person. Well, you can, I guess there's a separate person grooming versus the person that's sliding or throwing the slide, you know. Maybe in the, maybe in the team event or again, we're going to have to ask Jordan Paul next week. Oh, we're going to have them. And you're just not a mainstream sport, although it probably should be. Yeah, it should be. There would be a lot of fun with this. Okay, next. So, and before you switch, in Altoona, a mere hour from here, they have a curling club at the rank down there. Yes, I've heard this. We were down there for hockey and these guys are coming in with bags with the brooms and whatever that thing is they slide.

19:24Lots of beer. What's going on here? They're like, oh, it's curling night. We're like, oh, I got to stay and watch. It was awesome. See curling strikes me is for our crowd. The perfect blend between sports and drinking. Because there's plenty, there's plenty of downtime if you, if you want to have a beer, right? I think it's probably why it's so popular up there. Instead of going right to those senior games, you know, we feel like he still has some sort of athleticism. That's right. So, look, we're going to take a little break. We're going to stoke the fire. We're going to make sure our drinks are full. We come back. We're going to talk a little bit about the business of bourbon and then maybe move on to some other stuff. But thanks for being with us tonight. We'll be right back. What happens when work disappears? When money dissolves? And when freedom becomes something you earn, not something you're born with?

20:25A new kind of power is rising not a government, not a corporation, but the algorithm. In the algorithmic state, no jobs, no money, little freedom, Amazon best selling author. Bradley J. Martino reveals the world we're stepping into. A world where your reputation is computed, your opportunities are filtered, and your identity is shaped by systems that know you better than you know yourself. This is not science fiction. This is the operating manual of the future forming around us right now. If you want to understand the forces that will define power, belonging, and freedom in the decades ahead, start here. The algorithmic state, no jobs, no money, little freedom. Available now on Amazon. So you're telling me that kid speaks Mandarin? You're going to be kidding me, it's a sicko.

21:25Okay, we're back. We're back better with bourbon fast thinking, meet smooth drinking. And you know, even though the show is about bourbon, we've probably not paid bourbon enough attention on the show. There's so many things that we're interested in. This week, something interesting happened. There was a big buy out in the bourbon world. Japanese spirits conglomerate Kirin is selling four roses bourbon, which we happen to be drinking right now, back to the US wine giant E.J. Gallo. Bradley, tell us a little bit about this. What do you think is interesting about it? Well, it's not officially yet, so it's just a sales agreement. But it's, I think it's worth our talking about a little bit, especially since we talked a couple of weeks ago about, you did the talking, I'm going to do the dragon declining sales and bourbon drinking as you take a nice good swag. So we're helping the supply glut that's out there. So I find it good for the bourbon industry because it shows

22:27that there's still value for premium bourbons. Here, I think they were trying to fetch somewhere near a billion dollars and end up getting a contract for $775 million, plus a $50 million earnout, depending on how sales probably transpire over the first year or so. That is quite remarkable given the headlines that we've been seeing, even since we had our podcast a couple of weeks ago, that it's still happening. The drinking is down, this is down. Well, what I would like to know in those stats is bourbon drinking actually down. So we know Gen Z is not drinking as much, but are they really impacting the bourbon industry? Because bourbon industry is a little more of a refined, not that we're refined, we certainly are coarse and rough around the edges. But the typical bourbon drinker is a little more refined, is a little more in tune with the art of the drinking, of the taste, the soul, the story behind the bourbon.

23:28So it's not just a means to get drunk. Well, bourbon is bucking the general trend, right? It's pretty strong as I understand this, and I didn't do a ton of research on it, but this was a spot of strength, which is why they wanted to cash out. Yeah, and that's a great way to put it. It's definitely a spot of strength. Karen's looking at moving money to some of their other more stronger industries, pharmaceuticals, which is great. They're helping people get out of their own minds one way or the other. So it doesn't matter. So they're going to benefit from it. Yeah, they're moving their money around. And E and J's, this is their second delve into bourbon. I think they bought back in 2022 horse soldier bourbon. So this isn't the first time they've gotten into the market. But this is a big name. You know, this is a big name. It has a great line. I appreciate the bottle that you picked out for. Yeah, this is a small batch select. You get this pretty much anywhere.

24:29But of their lineup, this is the, you know, the price here of the two. This bottle here in Pennsylvania sells for, you know, 60, 65 bucks. And it's excellent. It is excellent. It's so smooth. Highly recommend. Yeah, you got a little bit of, you know, you got a little bit of leather in there. But some bourbons. This is about what is it? It's 52% 104 proof. So it doesn't have some of that chemically kind of overly boozy. You know, kind of knows when you get into it. It just tastes good. And it's not overly sweet like some of the other traditional kind of Kentucky bourbons. It's a lot of very nice. Oh, yeah. So we're going to, we're going to get into this. But you know, it's funny. You said they're, they're going to get into pharmaceutical. I was reading a little bit about this. The quote that I saw is they're going to get into a pharma, but health sciences. And, and I was like, well, what the hell's health sciences? And it's, it's functional foods and wellness products. That makes a lot of sense, you know, so it's a functional food. Well, it's, it's, it's stuff. It's probably they're, they're trying to probably, they are probably going to their database

25:30of folks that have been drinking their bourbon. They're trying to help and get better. Yeah, right. Right. Well, I think a functional food. I think my mind goes to kimchi immediately. Immediately. Right. So they're getting out of bourbon into. Yeah. Right. I mean, I do like hearing beer too. By the way, that's a great light beer. Oh, it sure is. But you know, there was, this is following. There was another Japanese major called Suntory. Right. Um, Suntory Holdings owned, um, Jim Beam and some rights to Makers Mark. And they actually cashed out last year, um, late 2025. And they said they were actually going to halt production at the time, um, particularly around the beam products. There's a glut of, of beam. So while people are buying, high in bourbon, seems like maybe the low end of the market's taking them on the chin a little bit and the Japanese wanted to, you know, cash out on top instead of on bottom like they did with, uh, you know, with Pebble Beach when they, you know, bought high sold low. Um, it's good hedge. Yeah.

26:30Good hedge. I mean, you can't go wrong either way. I think it will bounce back. I mean, everything's having flow, right? So, uh, especially in the alcohol market. But I do think that Karen, uh, got out with a very great price. I do think E&J got a great brand. You know, this is still one of the bourbons that still distilled in Kentucky. Of course. I had one location. Of course. And stored and, uh, and barreled in another. So in Kentucky. So it's, it's, it's, it's kind of got the old Kentucky feel to it. Um, this does not feel like a new fangled bourbon. This, this feels very traditional. No, this is a, this is, this is, this is, yeah, there's not a lot of, uh, this is a legacy burg in that bourbon that's, that I believe, uh, you know, when it, when it makes headlines, it catches our attention. So we're, since we're talking about business and deal size, I did not do a multiple comparison. Whether it was priced similarly to the, the Suntory decision. But do you think tariffs have anything to do with this?

27:32At this point, it's hard to say because I think the tariff fears have kind of settled in there. There was a lot of hot air out there initially in that, in that world and there was a lot of fear in all industries, not just the bourbon industry, but possibly possibly, you know, as a Japanese company, they're, they're saying, you know, what we don't want to play with that market anymore. And if we're going to get, uh, you know, and I'm not sure how, I guess I'm not really sure how the tariffs would have affected if they're distilleries and Kentucky, you know, if there would have been any effect on that. Yeah, there, there may have been, may have been a month, that up to speed on the tariffs legalities. But, um, yeah, if it's an American product being sold in America, right? But owned by a Japanese company, I got to assume that a tariff would apply. Possibly. Should probably do some research on that. But no, and Trump, it probably would have applied. Yeah, of course, of course, yeah, totally, totally. But then again, he, he, he doesn't send advice companies from overseas to come and do business and bet in the, uh, not just Pennsylvania, but the United States. So who knows that, that, that isn't unknown.

28:34That's a question mark that maybe we'll, we'll, we'll end that one other day. In the meantime, let's enjoy this because you never know, never know what you got till it's gone. I would hate to see this disappear. Well, and with E and J, they're, they are going to get a bigger distribution market. You know, you, you do have a, a, a well-season player that's been around in, in the alcohol business. And for such a high quality product, this is a big name. I mean, this, four rows of cells, massive amounts of products, which is clearly why they wanted to count and take that, uh, seven hundred and seventy five million dollar pay to it, right? That's not bad. Yeah, not at all. Uh, you ready to move on? Yeah. You want to talk about the other big, uh, we're going to go back to sports for a second because, let's go back to sports. Yeah. We skipped the obvious one. Uh, we, last night was a Super Bowl, speaking of skipping it, I, I skipped the whole second half. It was a snoozer. I mean, I just went, I went to, I started watching YouTube videos. That was actually more entertaining than, uh, uh, the Super Bowl. I think it was one of them in my opinion, and maybe I'm speaking on a turn here, but it was really boring. Uh, two great teams we talked about that them last week.

29:37Yep. I think the matchup was fantastic. Maybe because it was such a defensive battle to begin, it became a snoozer and it was a feel goal, you know, kickers drink watching a stealer game. Yeah. Right. Most of the stealers games this year. So, but I think most of the, the entertainment value to this game was everything that was happening off the field. Totally. Let's, uh, just real quick, let's acknowledge a couple things, uh, happy for Kenneth Walker, the third. That guy kind of reminds me of, of like a young badass, even though he's nowhere near that size. It's kind of like his personality. He has kind of the running style. Lavy on belt. He's very patient. Yeah. He's patient. And then you know, it takes his time. Yeah. And almost like he's just teasing them to come get him and then he just jumps. Yeah. And I think the announcer said they had the ability to watch him in practice and watch how quickly he was able to get out of the blocks. Yeah. The guy's awesome. I'm, I'm, I'm a, I'll say I'm a Seahawks fan from a distance because of my time in that city. But I did not fully appreciate how explosive he is as a runner because I just didn't,

30:42you don't get the opportunity to watch Seahawks play as well. No, not in this side of the country. Yeah. We don't get too many games. And you know, he's the first running back MVP since Super Bowl 33. Is that right? Is that right? Thrilled Davis in 1999. So that says a lot. Wow. Didn't know that. Good stat there. The other thing that I thought was really interesting before we get into some of this other off the field, Mishmash is, what's quarterback's name for Seattle? That was in Darnal. Darnal. I was struck by, and I said this out loud. I said to the folks I was watching a game with last night. In the post game interview, you know, this kid has been discarded how many times from how many different teams first player to ever play in the Super Bowl after being a starter for five, started for five different teams and was fired by five different teams, right? Yeah, kind of rough start getting going. But then once you got to Minnesota. Yeah. Yeah. We used with the Jets. He was down right, horrible. But then two seasons in a row. He had to go 14 and three with two different teams back to back. Right.

31:42Who in Minnesota made the decision to let him go to fire him? I know. That was a bad decision. Oh man. What a bunch of donkey. Hey, really? They got exactly what they deserve with, wasn't it Kurt Cousins? Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, it was Kurt Cousins. Oh, no. He didn't. It was also the Penn State quarterback, right? That was playing through injury. Oh man. Well. Yeah. They deserve for us not to remember who the hell we're talking about. But not really a watcher. Yeah, they earned that. I got to say that as much as the Patriots, you've heard me say before I'm going to repeat it. I struggle to find good things to say about the city of Boston and the Patriots in particular. That's the same thing about the Bruins. But we'll have to dig into that behind the scenes footage episode. That safety, I think his name is Hernandez or Gonzalez or something. It played a great game. He had a bunch of really high end breakups that saved the past early, kept them in that game a little bit. The break up, he got the slow motion of it coming through the air.

32:43It was impressive. Yeah, that dude played really well. He got to call it out and you see it, even if it is not going to England. I do want to go back to Walker though. I thought he was the difference maker in the first half. Totally, totally. Did you guys see the babble on B today? No. They posted a picture of the Patriots and the caption reads, Patriots offensive lines surprised to learn Super Bowl was yesterday. Yeah, well, I think that probably sums it up. I mean, the way Walker ran over the field, the second or second highest rusher was the striker that got tackled. And I was shocked to see that was a good pair to be honest. I thought you were going to try to do some problems where we're better with Bourbon with us, but no. Hey, listen. Just too old to be able to run that fast. Yeah. That was quick. That's what I was going to say. That striker had wheels. And he knows the wheels because it wasn't just security. One of the Patriots players is like, okay, this guy's moving fast. I need to get involved. We need to help him down and that's when he gave himself up on like the what was at the 10 yard line. He took it one. He took it in the dude with shoulder pads and a helmet chasing me.

33:43That guy was built. I thought he got into the end zone. He wanted to run the clock out. I think he was getting the maybe the Patriots side hired him. Yeah, well, you know what kills me with this is you know. Again, I, I sound like such an old man when I say this stuff, but you know that guy had somebody pay him pay for the ticket, pay to get him there. It's going to pay to get him out of jail because somebody made a giant kowshi bet on what quarter the striker is going to happen. Somebody put up on Polly market. We're going to I mean, don't fix. And this leads me to where should that even be legal? And now we shouldn't because if I want to, if I can, if I, if I, you can control that bet, right? Yeah. I don't see how that isn't one of the exceptions to the legal gambling because right, let's keep it on the field. But it is. It's that was a market that was made on kowshi and anything that you can have one person just be like, yeah, I can make this happen with it. It's totally controllable. Right. It's hard. I split the winnings with you.

34:44It would be, it would be interesting to see what the numbers were bet on that. You know what we can actually, maybe we should report back on that next week. That's actually a pretty good idea because where we're going to go with this conversation now is I just got some general comments about just the NFL, the NFL, you know, being from where we're from and having golden black coursing through our veins the way it does. I was born in 1975 when the Steelers won their first Super Bowl and I've never considered the Steelers anything but the greatest franchise in history at any point in my life because they, they have been patriots had an opportunity last night. To win their seventh, they didn't and by doing so, they've become actually, and this is kind of ironic for the Patriots, the losingest team in Super Bowl history. That was their seventh Super Bowl. I was going to say that they've, they've set the record for the most Super Bowl losses now. That's right. And as well as the most appearances. Yeah, they go hand in. Yeah. So, you know, you know, respect works too, but you know, it brings me a little bit of joy

35:45to say nobody's lost in the Super Bowl as much as the Patriots have. But but generally, I mean Buffalo did and they striked there. I was going to say, even more of the Buffalo. All right. John, I'm a little bit annoyed with the NFL, what do you say? The NFL, clearly, if you're a serious fan and you care about the game and you live in a town where other people care about the game, it feels to me like they are prioritizing growth at all cost over kind of any recognition that they might be kind of moving away from their core fan base. And there's a number of things that we can point out, which I am totally prepared to do. Great. Let's get into it. But I am too. And I, yeah, you know, where do you see the growth happening that they, or at least where the NFL thinks the growth is happening? Well, listen, a couple years, you know, let's call it a decade, maybe two decades ago, the NFL made a very concerted push to get women involved in football.

36:49And I think that worked out really well for them, okay? And it makes sense. And it made my life, it's made our lives easier because, you know, not every, not every gal in the world as a football fan, but I think they've done a really good job of making the game more accessible and taking some of the, you know, some of the acknowledgement of head injuries and some of the things that moms care about. And we're not going to, you know, kind of simplify women into one crowd, but they did a really good job and they were successful in doing that. But if you look back at kind of the means that they've chosen over the last decade specifically, it generally coalesces around charging more money for the same product, expanding the game internationally in a way that degrades the experience for those at home. I mean, if you're, you know, we're Steelers fans, we lost a home game this year every time. NFL wants to play a game in Europe or in Rio or, you know, wherever. The teams to play give up, one of those teams gives up a home game. Steelers gave up a home game this year in Dublin.

37:50You know, I don't know one fan. I mean, I'm sure you're out there, you know, God bless, if you are, I don't know anybody who's really in support of losing a home game. Well, they're clearly trying to expand the market, right? So they're, they're trying to grab interest from overseas, thinking that's going to increase viewership and increase interest, maybe increase merchandise sales, totally. But will they have to change the name from NFL to, because it's the national football league. It's not the international football league. Well, I mean, well, okay. So MLB has Canadian teams and is very well loved in the islands, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean. Canadians are kind of the exception. I mean, Trump's even referenced them as the 51st state basketball is even though it's huge in Europe and Asia. We have Canadian teams, baseball, even though it's, we already did baseball, it was the other one. Sock, Oh, soccer. Soccer is the, the king of the pile, hockey, obviously, you know, it's popular everywhere. I think football and Gidele in particular has a hard on for soccer.

38:53And he knows that, you know, soccer has come here and has stolen a little bit of his cheese, you know, and that's not just during his reign. This has been going on for a long time. It's an expanding market right now, and it's right right for that for. Let's take a look at football around the world. They call it football soccer, and I, you know, it's almost like he's trying to say, we'll show you what football really is. I like to fight that trademark case. Well, yes, here's the right. I mean, how you could pay it on that one. I think the global market for soccer is somewhere in the 30 to 35 billion dollar range. Okay. But that's the whole globe, all, all leagues put together. Okay. Football right now NFL's total revenue is about $23 billion, and we only play it in a handful of cities in the world. I mean, it's remarkable the amount of juice that they've squeezed out of this, out of this fruit, and still the owners in Gidele are not satisfied. Now, this is, I thought this was interesting.

39:54Well, and unlike trying to focus on expanding in the Canada, they've been focusing on everywhere else. So all the other Sunday morning, early morning games have been all around the world. I mean, Madrid and name the, you know, name the next one in Germany, Ireland, you go all the way, you know, through the catalog, which they've done a nice job of getting around and trying to bring some exposure. Now, if it's just trying to bring awareness, I like it. But if they're trying to expand league, then we got to reconsider what the league really is. Is this another AFL to NFL moment where we have to merge and go into something bigger? Because now it becomes the world, you know, football league, not the national football league. That's an interesting point. I, you know, I think what they're trying to do is be selective about certain clubs, because I didn't, I didn't realize this until I little did a little bit of reading. The Steelers, for instance, and might be the most obvious of all the teams in the league,

40:55have been given some degree of exclusivity to NFL, to the NFL brand in Ireland. Okay. And I didn't know that, but the Saints have the same in France. The Raiders have the same in Mexico. So it's interesting. It's an interesting model. I don't know what that means for, you know, potential expansion to potentially including leagues, you know, in Europe or South America. But you know, when you think about maybe the, you know, the Steelers and the Rooney's owning Ireland, it might, you know, that might be a tell that maybe they're not necessarily trying to expand and put a team in Ireland or England or whatever. Maybe not, you know, maybe it's just, maybe it's just awareness and trying to bring it in since now streaming services are readily available and you can stream this and not, you don't need to have the cable channels. It's all above your ship. It's all about getting those eyes on your role.

41:55Well, the streaming is one of the major problems I have. I got a major problem with NFL going streaming. I love it. I love when you go off in your streaming. Yeah. And here's the use case. Everybody knows that we had two, two championship games prior to the Super Bowl played just a handful of weeks ago that were not available on regular broadcast TV. And it makes me want to vomit that little Timmy can say to dad, hey, dad, can we put on the NFL game? And dad'd be like, hey, buddy, we can't afford it this year. It makes me want to vomit. Timmy, come on. We have to go to the bar or watch this one. Yeah, right. It's bad enough to cost an arm and a leg to go to a game in person, but then to be able to have to pay for it at home. Now you're talking the average cost, but what was the average cost? It was your pool ticket this year. No, no, no. Here, the average cost, I even forget about the Super, the average cost around the league for a family of four to go to a game is now between $750 and $800. Yeah, that's amazing. Across the league. Before you buy food. No, that's the total cost. The non-ticket costs, what they call the park is, it's the refreshment, the hot dog,

43:00the parking costs are north of $200. That's before you buy the tickets. This was shocking to me. Well, did you see $180 burger at the Super Bowl? No, I did $180 hamburger. $180. That's great. But it was, yeah, it was lamb, kind of like origin and have the Thursday at our bourbon club at the end of the year. Not $180. Don't forget to plug the greens. Yeah, right. Yeah. The best greens in the world in the United States. But look, this whole thing, it's not just the streaming, it's not just the international games. It's the grotesque embrace of all things gambling, you know, I mean, how many commercials did we see for, you know, fandal and draft kings and how many kids around the world are gambling money that they're taking from their parents or they don't have how many, I mean, it's just, well, we talked about inflation, it obviously hits the Super Bowl most. So the cost of a Super Bowl ticket, the cost of a Super Bowl commercial, I think the average commercial is $7,000, $7,8 million this year. Yeah.

44:00So you have to have, that's 30 second, Perry. That is. So you have to have a war chest to dig into to feel like that's going to provide you value for, you know, the rate of return for your investment, that's significant. So the audience there that is, that can afford it, has narrowed down. I was shocked it wasn't all pharmaceuticals, I was shocked it wasn't, you mean, the commercial is the commercial. Yeah. So here, hold on, we can talk about commercials. I want to do that. But I got some stats here that are really interesting, right? Okay. Yeah, let's get back. Okay. Okay. So, 10 years ago, the NFL's distribution to individual franchises of shared revenue, which come from percentage of merchandise sales and TV deals, okay, was right around just north of, of $200 million annually. Okay. 10 years later, that has more than doubled, and it's, it's pushing up toward, I think,

45:02I think it's $440 billion annually. So more than a double in 10 years, okay. That's remarkable. And that's just for having a team, okay, that's not even, that's not even considering the local revenue that local teams got from services at games, parking, deals with the city, certain types of, of merchandise sales. So whatever Gidell's doing is working, and what owner is going to be like, nah, don't, don't do it. It's interesting. They have a, Gidell has a stated goal of, of getting the league to $25 billion in total revenue by 2027. And you know that if he achieves that, you know, his pay package is, is, is shrouded in a lot of secrecy. But you know, when that happens, he'll step away. We'll never see him again. Yeah. So Darnels, he earned an extra $4 million based on his performance this year. So, you know, yeah, much like, you know, Roger Gidell, he, he, he is probably incentivized

46:04by how much he's going to bring in for the league. And, and now he's reaching it all straws. And you know, might, might take on this. This is where I think the league should focus on. And that is extra subscription service through the NFL app, where you can log in. That's interesting. And see a 4K camera on your favorite player's helmet. Yeah. But you know, who's not going to allow that to happen? Who's the NFL? Because they're going to, they're going to, they're going to sell that. And you know, before they're going to do that, we have TV rights have been negotiated out to 2030. Right. Okay. So the next opportunity to negotiate TV rights is going to be in advance of that 2031 season. Do you think this will be a violation of the TV contract they already have in place? You know what? I didn't really think about it that way, but I'm sure the players association would want a really significant chunk of that because then you're getting into individual players, you know, contributing to the overall, I mean, they do anyway, but it would be very easy to track since it's a metric player by player, you know, on that regard, but it's an interesting

47:04idea. It definitely is. Well, and I think it'll be something that's sellable. So, you know, if you're asking us to as a fan to engage in something additional from all the different streaming services we know at the own, to be able to watch the game, this is enhanced. Now, we can actually get into the person's helmet that's running through the line of scrimmage that's, you know, getting tackled, that's going down the field, that's seeing the end zone as they cross the end zone, you know, whether they put audio there or not, that's another whole privacy concern. I'm sure the players association will have a big issue with because, you know, what's damage the personal. It is. So what's that on the field probably needs to stay on the field, right? Yeah. And we can expect that as, you know, former athletes, former aqua pillow singer, you know, so you know how that goes when you're, you know, in the battle. Okay. Well, look, we're going to take a technical break here, our, our, our, our technologies about to burst into flames like the fire back. Yeah. Very come back. Very, just raised to, yeah. That size 13 is the little it is. All right.

48:04So quick break, quick break, quick break, we'll be right back. What happens when work disappears when money dissolves and when freedom becomes something you earn, not something you're born with, a new kind of power is rising, not a government, not a corporation, but the algorithm in the algorithmic state, no jobs, no money, little freedom, Amazon best selling author, Bradley J. Martin O reveals the world we're stepping into, a world where your reputation is computed, your opportunities are filtered and your identity is shaped by systems that know you better than you know yourself. This is not science fiction. This is the operating manual of the future forming around us right now. If you want to understand the forces that will define power, belonging and freedom in

49:05the decades ahead, start here, the algorithmic state, no jobs, no money, little freedom, available now on Amazon. Do I throw you trouble, base, or just, well, I was, I was, I was a tenor, but I'm not, I'm not sure that really matter. So what is a tenor? Maybe I, that's the, that's the higher mill voice than a high voice than a, than a marathon or a base. But in life, that's the Michael Jackson, forget about acapella, in life, I'm all about the base. And I can take your leave, I can take your leave the trouble, you know what I mean. Anyway, okay, so we're back, we're back better with bourbon, we're going to tie up some of our conversation about the Super Bowl. I didn't realize that we had so much to damn talk about the Super Bowl, most boring Super Bowl in years. It was, but there was a lot going on outside, you know, the Super Bowl, and everything leading up to the NFL. I think that, that's the conversation, you know, so, so quick hitter for you.

50:07Yeah. Okay. What do you think of the halftime show? What was your favorite commercial, tackle them, and whatever order you want? I saw Nate, I have nothing to offer because I, I didn't see, I turned off the game, probably halfway through the second quarter. Oh, man, so you really did miss halftime? I, I missed everything from there on it. And a couple of good commercials too. Yeah, I probably missed the good commercials. That's the only thing I was regretting, but I, I thought I was going to get some good feedback from my wife and, and daughter because they actually, what did they suck it out? There was no, I guess there was a, a commercial that had all the stars of yesterday on that they liked, Joey, I think from friends, I think from the dance, yeah, yeah, that was the Duncan commercial with, yeah, yeah, with the, that one, that, that one, yeah, that one comes to mind since I didn't see it, but I heard about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the, what was your favorite? Well, I, I would give you that the, the folks I was watching with, they were a little bit kind of like this on the commercials as well.

51:09I, you know, how do you not like the, the Budweiser commercial with the horse and the eagle? I mean, they seem to get it right all the time. They went every year. Yeah, they get it right all the time, don't they? They do. Yep, it's perfect. I did think, but why is there gets it right all the time? Well, no. I want to come sit. Yeah, but it comes with Super Bowl commercials. I mean, not Bud Light, but, but they are one in the same, aren't they? Well, they treat them as two different brands. Okay. Thank goodness for it. And we got, I thought, in Perry, trust me, I'm all about, you know, you promoting Bud Light. Yeah. You can take the guy out of the dress, but you can't take the dress out of the guy. That's right. Okay. Hey, listen, the best commercial was the coin based commercial. Oh, I don't know if you saw it. It was really interesting because all it was was, you know, a replay of the Backstreet Boys song. There was no indication that it was about anything other than they, they would put the words up on the screen. I did see a karaoke. Did you see it? I did see it, but I didn't realize it was coin based until, well, there was no indication

52:10it was for anything until the end when they just put up coin based. And I think the whole point was just to get everybody having fun because you couldn't see that and not be like, yeah, move your body. So it was a non-commercial, without your support. And it was super effective because when you saw it having it, everybody stopped. They were really colorful screen words going across and you had no idea it was effective because I said, you know, I think the, the boy bands are making a comeback. You know, we've seen, you know, Backstreet Boys, man, I sure hope so. And say, they've been doing some, you know, comeback concerts, whether it's in Vegas. I haven't worn out my eligibility yet, you know, and I mean, I'm still available if we want to go together. Well, you guys are burning CDs when you're at Wake Forest and that I don't know. Hey, no, it's Sunday. I'd like to see a reunion. Yeah, right. What do you think of the, okay, so no halftime show, no comment on halftime show? I didn't see either. I didn't, I didn't see the halftime show. I saw comments on the halftime show. Yeah.

53:11And I want to report on secondhand information and then I saw comments on the alternative and I didn't watch either. So I was already on, I was tired. So I went to bed. Yeah, it was on to YouTube. I didn't watch either one either. I was editing video. Yeah. That's a much fun nerd. Yeah. Damn straight. Well, thank you very much. Here's a very non politically aligned assessment of the halftime show. First of all, bad bunny is straight fire like Justin Bieber is. I mean, you can't, you can't question that. Whether you like the music or what you think about him, the dude's talented and he gets a jump and I don't mind regatone music at all. I do definitely understand the, how can you have 11 minutes of music in straight Spanish in the middle of the Super Bowl? That's weird. But I think it goes back to this question about who's good Dell trying to appeal to.

54:13I mean, that's clearly a global play that is clearly at the expense of your middle of the country, USA traditional football fans and kind of plays into the theme that we were talking about earlier. But I get to tell you, I thought from an entertainment perspective, it was maybe the most entertaining halftime show I can remember. I mean, I couldn't name another one that's from my reject. So what I've seen on mine and what I saw as far as the highlights of the halftime show, the dancing, the production itself, the energy, the straight rump shaken was in the message that he was sending, even though we can understand Spanish, was powerful. And I thought very good in a lot of, and there was a lot of positive feedback online. So there was no negativity about it. He didn't wear a dress. He didn't, you know, at my, she didn't tell it was none of that. And I thought it was really good at the end where he's running, you could tell the things coming to a close and there's all the flags behind, you know, and they had the, you know,

55:17they had the stars and stripes out there in front and, you know, yeah, right. So you know, it makes you wonder, is that because the NFL made him or is it because he's a good guy and, you know, recognize the opportunity he had, you know, hopefully, hopefully both and, and, you know, and I'm glad it didn't turn into anything, but just, you know, an opportunity to have a bunch of people see regatone music who, who maybe wouldn't otherwise. Yeah. And I, you know, that's where I come from. It doesn't seem like it was nearly as controversial as some people would have wanted it to be. And it was way more emptied up to be that way. Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was totally entertaining. And that's, that's the word I was here and two is it was extremely entertaining. Yeah. Better than expected. So, um, the half time show was, was a positive. Yeah. Definitely. Um, okay. The game itself. Yeah. Looking forward to the Super Bowl next year. Hopefully, uh, we get Aaron Rodgers in there, look like Aaron, let's talk about that just for one second. Yeah. Oh, unscripted. Here we go.

56:17Totally unscripted. Yeah. Yeah. We're all the time. We got talking points. We, we are not reading. Yeah. Yeah. So, why don't you tell us your opinion, uh, because now with McCarthy and in the, uh, additions into the Ross, or into the coaching staff that they've made and, um, the rumblings and the headlines, the Vegas odds seem to be looking at Aaron possibly coming back. I think they wouldn't have hired McCarthy unless it was connected to his desire and willingness to be a stealer another year and give it a go. I mean, the guy can clearly still play. I, I think the play calling last year was, was totally a frustration for him and anybody who remembers the, I believe it was the Buffalo game where, where, where, where TV got a really great shot of him looking at the sideline and yelling at them very audibly. I got this. Right. He's telling them, leave me alone. Let me call the damn place. You, you, you guys have no idea what you're doing. I, I compared to, yeah, to when we turned over the reins to Ben the last year or two, it

57:20mean, Aaron has been around the league. He's one of the smartest quarterbacks that's ever played the game, right? Yeah. He can dissect the game in real time, let him, let him call a game. I think you would have made Art Smith look like a genius. Yeah. Right, right, right. I'm not sure it was Art Smith's call though. I think unfortunately, you know, I've been, maybe not totally loyal to Tomlin for hundreds of years and we'll find a way to defend him in any conversation, but that's clearly a Tomlinism and, you know, I, I'm looking forward to a new beginning next year, even if it is with some of the oldest damn players in the league, I mean, if you can call that a new beginning with a 40 year old quarterback, but, you know, in a 60 something year old coach. But there's also rumors out there that possibly would the play was for a Willis who's up in free agency from, well, I remember us talking about maybe taking him back into Kenny. You know, when we ended up with Kenny Pickett and it seems like whoever made that call, you know, the Steelers traditionally have had such a good eye for talent and draft and develop, you know, traditionally, you know, better than any other team in the league, particularly

58:22with those offensive players, when you take a Heinz Ward, who was a wide receiver, you turn, or it was a quarterback, you turn them into a wide receiver, he should have gotten into the Hall of Fame, didn't, but Will, he will, you know, they found guys that other people passed on forever. James Harrison, nobody wanted James Harrison coming out of Virginia Union, turns into one of the most dominant in his prime, one of the most dominant defensive players ever. And we could go through the ranks, we could name, we could name 20 more guys that the Steelers picked up and turned into same thing, you know, and I just, I want to get back to a place where we have as fans have the belief that they have an eye for unique talent and they have a unique way of developing middling talent, right? And I just haven't felt that in the last few years. So yeah, I'm hopeful for the new beginning with McCarthy, and I love the fact that he picked up one of, you know, one of these guys, there was a connection here to the little town we sit in right now. I was great to see Frank Sinetti get picked up onto the staff, IEP's staff, it's a loss

59:26for IEP, but it seems to be a breeding ground for great coaches. Totally, totally. Yeah, you agree, Perry, anything you want to add about the commercials? Would you think you, you good on halftime show? Did you, did you like the reggaeton? Were you looking for the dress? I like the music. Don't really know anything about this bunny guy. I'm a bunny myself as Brad has, well, I did text Perry before the game. I said, listen, there's only one bad bunny in my eyes. He did. I could, I could, I could prove, I could pose the text to prove it. Yeah, it's really good. I didn't watch it, but it seems like it was, like I said, not nearly as controversial as I think a lot of people wanted it to be, including people very high up in our government. But it was, the game was boring. I saw the commercial for the Budweiser commercial before the Super Bowl. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's amazing. I mean, if you, that doesn't give you the, the case of the fields and your, your, your

1:00:27dead, yeah. Yeah, right. Can I just say one more thing before we go off the one thing I thought that was really good. And I did watch this was the National Anthem. I thought, oh, yeah, great call. Holy heck. I thought he was other than maybe, yeah, Whitney Houston, the greatest National Anthem of all time. Yeah. I mean, yeah, which is a very hard threshold to ever try to meet. Really? That's good. His, his version of it and the way he did it was heartfelt. It was pure and it just made you feel so American. I, I am not a big fan of people taking artistic license or liberties with the National Anthem. I'm a traditionalist. I like it. Yeah, I agree. The way it was originally written, maybe a little flair here and there. I thought that was good. Whitney Houston was probably the best, but, oh, you see, she's, she's, it's the best. It's the best rendition of the National Anthem. It may be. Well, I mean, that's next to Rosanne Bar. Well, ok, here's here's here's here's a, that's a circle.

1:01:29No, no, let's see. In two in nineteen ninety six or seven, Wake Forest at the time was the number two team in the country. I believe we were going to play Georgia Tech in a couple or no, hold on, hold on, hold on. the country, I believe was Carolina and they had lost on Sunday. We're playing, no, no, they had lost on on on on on Friday. We're playing on Sunday. It's like the game of the week, televised 1230 tip. The Acapella group gets the call to come sing the national anthem. There it is. Yeah. And yeah, right. And and so we go down and we take it very seriously. And they're, you know, we have like 14 voices standing around a couple of microphones. It's like our opportunity to do it. We ripped through the national anthem, you know, overwhelming applause. You know, I'd never seen anybody throw flowers onto the court for, you know, for the Acapella guys singing the, the

1:02:33anthem, but who brings flowers to a basket? Well, right, our fan base was massive. I mean, it was Timmy Duncan was here. We were just like right here on campus, but just the punch line here is that we, we lost and we did not become the number one team in the country. And that was the last time we were invited to sing the national anthem, which is actually cool that you get to sing the national anthem. And we're asked to sing the national anthem. It's such a big, yeah, it was cool. So little plug for our little corner of the world here at the girls basketball games that have been attending for my, my stepson's girlfriend plays. They played the national anthem that was sung by Ed Parks, who was graduated Indian High School in 2000, or early 2000s, remember the exactly the name, the year, but he is a Grammy Award winning opera singer. Right. If you heard of this, yeah, you, I got to get my hands on this. They play it in the auditorium at the high school before the game. It just

1:03:33yeah, that just brings the walls. It's amazing. Absolutely amazing. It's Acapella. No music. Yeah, I'll get, I'll get my hands on that. We'll share it from our karaoke Acapella times too. We're rocking some songs. That's right. I don't know if you guys can tell if you're, if you're still watching, I'm, you know, I'm not sure everybody is, but the, the, the bar, the Burmanometer is, the Burmanometer is falling. Burmanometer, a new phrase was just coined. I like it. Just, the Burman barometer is, is sinking. So it's a good sign. Probably time for us to cut this off. We already got the broadcaster. So what was left is that we have such a great discussion with the NIL expert in the United States, Eddie Edwards last week, that we went on for so long that we decided to bring you the second half of our discussion. And so we're in a, we're going to pair that in from here and finish this episode on with our

1:04:36discussion with Eddie last week. I think it's very. So he's so smooth. It would be a shame to waste that content. He is so smooth. And speaking of that, he is starting his own podcast here in a few weeks. It's going to be called stars and suits by help them do the logo. I did add that little formality of the tie to the microphone. So that is coming from your one and only marketing. Yeah, but his is is is is is intro music is theme music and can be like art. It's going to be hard to beat. Yeah, it's going to be hard to write. Yeah, maybe maybe enlist us to help him create an original for a fee. Yeah. Anyways, check out check out stars and suits. It's going to be awesome because Eddie's going to have some great guests on. But we are going to finish this up with with our second half of Eddie. Here's here's to everything's better with bourbon. Enjoy Eddie. Yeah, see you soon.

1:05:41We can say we're getting the money years. That's totally okay. We're back. The fire is stoked. It is. We filled the glasses. You got you all who are following the the bourbon barometer. It's getting low. The barometer is coming down. It's got temperatures going up. Right. So this has been fascinating so far, Eddie. Yeah, I'm starting to understand this a little better starting to formulate some questions. I want to ask you what do we need to know next? What's next? So let's recap. I think that's probably the best place to start, especially for those people who may not have been able to visit with us last week. That's right. So details of the health settlement. And again, as I mentioned before, the college sports commission has a great website that you could just yank a lot of this information off of. Because remember, this is this is a part of a settlement. We don't have a federal law in place yet. And when you say host settlement, that is the name of the case, right? Yeah, it's not it's not related to the Congress or no, nothing like that. So they give some summaries and I'm going to read those verbatim just to get our listeners back. Yeah, give it back on point. So

1:06:43this is where the sports illustrious came in play. This is where I learned how to read. So institutional payments to student athletes schools are permitted to distribute payments and additional benefits to student athletes up to 20.5 million in the first year derived from an annual percentage of broadcast sponsorship and ticket sale revenues. The amount has an annual escalator and will be adjusted every three years based on average a five schools revenues. So it's important for as a baseline for listeners to understand. Yeah, back damages. No, we said in excess of 2.5 last week, but it's actually 2.77 billion paid out to current and former athletes over a 10-year period. Whoa! Now, I do want to have you out there. Yeah. See, student athletes have these rights to, you know, these back revenues that, you know, you get over a 10-year period. And this is capitalism at its finest. You know, there are companies reaching out to these student athletes right now saying, I like to buy the right to that

1:07:43revenue for a amount certain right now. It's like that little jingle on the commercial right? So it's almost like insurance. You know, insurance, you know, you know, your death benefit is this, but we'll give you this right now. And you assign me the right. And you can go through this is happening with athletes right now. And I get calls from people that we represent saying, Eddie, somebody just called and said, I know you're going to get paid this over 10 years, but I'd be willing to give you 50% of that certain right now for that right. And we'll just collect it over the 10 years. That's right. Hedgephones. Crazy, right? Yeah. Pay up front again. It's a duty. We're not rendering legal advice. And I love your disclaimer at the beginning because we're attorneys and we're not doing that. But what I would say to anybody listening at knows somebody that's, you know, has this right? Please seek, you know, a competent council. Yeah. Please seek, you know, legal advice on how this actually works. Yeah. And make sure you're not getting taken advantage of, uh, by somebody that's throwing a number that seems big right now, because you don't have them the way 10 years. But it's fair. Right. Right. I mean, and

1:08:45some people's financial position may dictate something different. So certainly personal, uh, circumstances always dictate the settlement, right? Absolutely. So, but, uh, and it happens in litigation, right? It does. So, but I would think that you want to talk it through and make sure you're making an educated and informed decision. Absolutely. Absolutely. And then full release of claims for compensation or scholarships by current and former student athletes. So, you know, you take the settlement, you get the money or a 10 year, you're going to have a release. Not unlike any other settlement agreement that Brad and I have seen in matters that we've handled. You know, speaking of releases, I just had to do a release for Perry's only fans, uh, because you know, I was signing up for his only fans account, uh, for the Perry's bunny paradise. And, and, and they made me, uh, have to get a release from him to do his AI parody that we're doing. And it was, it was one of the weirdest legal work I had to do is go over this release. I had to create this disclaimer. Anyways, I know I'm off track a little bit, but, you know, Perry's bunny ears

1:09:45over there just catch me every time. So, it's hard to ignore. It is hard to ignore. It's, it's hard to ignore the story. Um, and I all rights and clarity. Athletes may continue to license. So, when you hear license, right? That's intellectual. It is intellectual property. Right. Right. Which is, which is an emission. Athletes may continue to license their NIL rights to third party entities subject to review through new clearinghouse platform. NIL go. We talked about that in the last episode, right? NIL go is that clearinghouse. And then it just talks about the scholarship and roster limits. NCA division one scholarship limits will be eliminated and replaced with roster limits in each NCA sponsored sport. Institutions may offer scholarships up to the established roster limits, creating opportunity for hundreds of new scholarships. Again, Olympic sports, non-revenue generating sports, opportunities for students. So, it's, it's not all bad, but that that those extra scholarships come out of the revshare.

1:10:46Schools may add to their rosters without counting against roster limits. Student athletes who would have lost their roster spot due to the settlement, rostylements. This was actually really important because one of the big issues was what if you had kids that were there already? Are they going to get squeezed out of their spot? Are they? They were grandfathered in. No, there was a notice requirement you'd elicit those individuals where and they got to keep their spot. Now, there's, that doesn't hold forever. Is we're talking about this settlement? Why the tenure? What was magical about tenure? Do you know? Now, I don't know specifically what was, I mean, it's paid over 10 years. Well, and I'm talking about the lookback 10 years. Yeah, no, I don't, I don't, to be frank with you. To give the athletes that are out of that. Yes, they cut off because, I mean, was there a statue of limitations that they were looking at that was a magical number? I guess I don't know. Potentially was, because I mean, we're, here I'm thinking about the guys that are on the 11 and 12 that were just absolute. Heck, think about stud athletes or ladies that were stud athletes. Why weren't they benefiting from this? And why would we not go all the way back? Because in all fairness, and I know you're in the sports,

1:11:47I mean, I'm not really, but the, you know, they got robbed. Well, I mean, I think there's, there's athletes this day that are saying, you know, why wasn't I made a part of that settlement? Yeah, I agree. I mean, we mentioned, you know, one of our dear friends earlier, who was a stud. And I, you know, again, I could only imagine what he would have gotten, right? If he was available to get an IL in his day. So, again, can you imagine what you would have been able to get Deacon? I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I may have been able to get, I mean, a good sum. I mean, he's talented. I've heard him sing. No, he's, he's, he's got all fans sing. No, I mean, it's hard to believe he's not, it's coming up on the future episode. It will, I mean, on the next episode of No, yeah, we will snore this fast, thinking it makes me want to do some smooth drag and I'll die. Well, but, but Brad, I mean, get back to what you're good at, Mitchell. I think another interesting point is, you know, in, in, in you and I, so, so Brad and I have these discussions, whether it's over dinner, over coffee, yeah, in the golf course, bourbon dinners, hang out bourbon dinners. Yeah, we're going to get you up here again for

1:12:47a bourbon dinner in a way that's been, yeah, glad. I mean, and that's great. The fellowship in Indian and country club is amazing. You have some really good individuals that come, you know, they share some phenomenal bourbons. And that's kind of how this came into play too. That's exactly how this came into play. One of the first bourbon clubs I brought you into, you had brought in the rowing with you. You also brought in two or three others and we dove into it. I got a wrist slap because we were not serving it properly, but we, we back, we, we, there's no wrong way to serve those. We adjusted. We adjusted. We know, we want to follow the rules. We just don't know all the rules all the time, right? Exactly. We'll find them. You'll, you'll get there. We're real followers. So we will, we will, we will research and we will hear. That's right. These guys are real followers. So, you know, one of the questions I always get interesting is people to say, I, you know, how did you, how did you handle, you know, opportunities with student athletes before, sorry about that. You know, the house settlement. Like they can finally got its goal. So, so what, what did that look like, right before house

1:13:51settlement? And, you know, when you were dealing with the collectives and it was interesting. You know, you always hear the moniker wild west. Yeah. It truly was. Those are wild west. Make it up with no caps. Yeah, right. You know, I saw a quote. I told Brad about this earlier. There's a quote that was flying a plane while you're building it. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, that's, that's a great quote, right? You know, you're just flying a plane while you're building it. They're the right brothers. They're the right brothers. And there was, you know, there were, there were, I mean, literally states were passing individual state laws, allowing for the exploitation of the name image and likeness. So there was no, there were no guardrails. No, Eddie, I know you're, you're very humble and you won't say it. So I'm going to say it for you. But you've negotiated more NIL collective deals. Don't lie. If you aren't the most, you're definitely. I've been a lot. There's a, but you know what, here's what I'll say. There are a lot of good lawyers out there that are excellent at what they do, but you remember agencies do this too. It's not just lawyers. So, you know, there are a lot of good people doing good work on behalf of student athletes. You know,

1:14:51I'm fortunate because I know people. I mean, I, you know how I know you're good at this? Because immediately upon us promoting this, that you were going to come on and talk about this, somebody that we all three know very well and is a good friend of the pod. We're probably going to have them on. Probably going to have me immediately and said, you've got to be shitting me. You're talking NIL and you're having Eddie Edwards on. Yeah, right. I thought we were friends. Eat. You can probably guess who I'm talking about. Yeah. You used to work with them. Yeah. Should we say it? Yeah. We love you, Dave Franklin. Yeah. Love you, Dave Franklin. I'm going to have anyone. Dave. Yeah. And Franklin and Franklin and Franklin and I go back because, you know, he was one of my, in fact, he did my corporate work and I'm going to break the client turning privilege Dave and I'm sorry. So I'm going to go there on buyincomeproperties.com when I, when I did that back in the day, I went to Dave. I mean, we worked to resmit together. He's, he's a such a respected, well, there is an excellent mind out there. You know, David Franklin is one of them. Yeah. You know, I see him for a long time. No, I love Franklin. He's a good man. He's a good lawyer.

1:15:55One of my favorite days in the world. And he's the kind of guy you can have a bourbon within an enjoy talking about the day. Well, one kind of guy will have bourbon all day every day. Well, he's the kind of guy he could be fit in in Indiana. Dave, you need to move to Indiana. I'm sorry. I'll be on those student athletes out there. Yeah. So there's, there's more student athletes and more work to do than our lawyers. And there's, there's more work to do than our competent lawyers probably to do some of this work because you really have to involve yourself in, you know, the, the bricks and mortar of how this works. Like you just can't wake up and say, all right, I got my number like in the kids there, you can't wear good. The devil's in the details. So you always pay attention to the details. So, but the details also come from the experience. And you have to see deals to no deal. Yeah, exactly. So you have to go through the, here's where this can get off track. Because there's no, there's no master. Exactly. And how to negotiate, right? If somebody's advising her, are they really for seeing what can happen? You have to anticipate, look, as you know, I'm a Dinswornchall national firm. Great. 700 plus lawyers. So we have a robust,

1:16:58it sounds really intellectual property group. I mean, they're, they're amazing, right? And I, you know, we're going to get your hair in your little pump. And we're lucky. Our managing partners and IP attorney. Yeah. So with, with a student athlete is one of the top soccer players in Ohio, right? They can actually play soccer up till third grade. You know, there, there is, you know, we, we realize the importance of, you know, this area of law, what it means to families and student athletes. So what's great is we can break apart these agreements in a way that probably most others can't, right? And I'm going to give shout outs, April bezel, Jessica Gidell, right? Two of the best. Yeah. I get my IP provisions. Yep. They break it down for me. Very fortunate. You know, and you know them. Yeah. Jim Zezatech is one of the foremost authorities in NCA law. Really is. And Nick Godfrey. Yep. Two of our partners there who do it. You're bringing back all these warm feelings when I had in Pittsburgh when I was hanging up with all these guys. Yeah. But the, I mean, these are, these are top notch minds who we have working on these agreements on behalf of student athletes. So, you know, again, doubles in the details. Now,

1:18:03I was going back to the, to the NIL stuff before. And again, the collective deals. That's right. Third party, collective. So let's, let's, let's, let's, third party deals. That's right. So let's dive into that. So talk about how it was before. Again, first of all, what is a collective? Yeah, what is a collective? What is a collective was an entity that was a separate entity, right? It wasn't the school. It's not the school, separate from the school, separate from the school. It's not the kid that would facilitate either, you know, deals for the student athletes or the entity would have their own deals that they would get the student athlete involved in as well. Because if it was, you know, for the school, they could have, you know, speaking engagements, things of that nature that they could, you know, connect the student athlete with so that they, you know, could earn. So this is essentially a financial vehicle that can transfer, has the ability based on these rulings to transfer money to the student. Not transfer. That's the distinction because it has to be a legitimate, not a legitimate business purpose. So these student athletes had to, to do things to earn those dollars. That's right. It's the

1:19:03exploitation. Again, remember, this is an intellectual property, right? They're licensing that intellectual property for this collective, whoever to utilize. And they can monetize it. Now, whether it was, it was, you know, we're going to have you, you know, work at our golf outing, speaking engagements, you know, appearances, whatever, right? And again, it was interesting because, you know, you can't enter into these agreements prior to getting to that college university or it's an inducement. That's right. So you still have, you still have that love, you know, a barrier to get the student athlete to the point where they could go to the college university before they're executing this agreement. Eddie, have you seen, essentially, it's part of this collective, if you've seen, besides the name, image, like, so, I'm thinking you have, are there shoe deals, uh, apparel deals? Now there are, I mean, obviously, the, the, you know, when you look at third party agreements, you know, the shoe companies have gotten deals with, you know, Juju Watkins is what Jordan and, is that all going through the collectives? No, those are, those can be direct deals. So those are direct deals. So,

1:20:06because you don't, you don't have, is that coming, is, so what is the collective doing? What is, well, the collectives aren't as prominent as they once were if, if at all. Some of them absorb by the actual athletic departments and they, they no longer exist. Why would you have now? What, why did the absorbent, how did it, how could it absorbent? This is after post-house settlement, everything is getting tightened up, right? So now, you have to have a designated, you know, third, like, when I went through that, you know, you have to know who the, the pay or is, you have to have a, you know, a valid business purpose, right? Let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me make this point. What's occurring now is, you know, you have your revshared that you're doing through the university and now the university kind of marketing arms or, you know, arms that help facilitate these real actual third party deals with the student athletes that are, that are valid business deals. Yep, yep. Right? Because, again, make some, this is a pay for play, right? This isn't, we're not paying these kids for

1:21:07what they perform on the, and this goes back to when I say this isn't pay for play. I mean, you brought this up to me a zillion times, you know, Eddie, what about the employment aspect? Because what people don't realize is these kids get paid as 1099s, right? Hold different, well, with taxes. And let me just go off in a little tangent there because if we were to evaluate as very strict looking attorneys at the independent contractor laws in any business owner out there would know that's acting as an independent contractor. You have all these checkpoints. Do you have your own equipment? Are you allowed to deal with a different client? What am I going to go as you please? Come and go as you please. And I'm sure listeners that are talking, and I'm just as I'm talking to you with a couple of bourbons in me, they don't. I've heard plenty of arguments for and against. I think it's the white elephant, I think it has to be, I think, look, read an article about Colorado wanting to find their

1:22:10players. You know, if you're late for practice and do these things and, you know, does that mean that they're now employees? Because it's, you know, an independent contractor again comes and goes as they please. If I have to be somewhere at date certain date certain date time, does that change the, the characters of what that individual is and how that contract is supposed to work? So using their equipment, again, this is going back to the arguments, do we need a unified law out there? Well, to, and this is, this is the hurl matter because everything scrambled up right right now, right? We were talking about the fragmented laws, we're talking about the house settlement, we're talking about Austin in the, the, the foresight that the Justice Cavanaugh has is, are, are the employers, are they not employers? So maybe what needs to happen is we need some real legislation out there that sets the tone as to what makes sense for everybody, right? Through our politicians that we like, but, but, but, but it shouldn't be politicized. Well, it shouldn't be,

1:23:12but, but I think it's, it's got to, it's got to be, look, I think this is good for everybody. No, I agree. I'm not, but I'm not pro student athlete, pro institution. Neither am I. I'm pro great system so that everybody went trying to lubricate the, but how do, so, so Eddie, I would, I'll challenge you, how do, how do we otherwise get a system that fits is not going to be challenged again in the courts? It's not going to be, you know, look, you have people who say, you know, to speculate, you know, should there be a, should there be collective bargaining, right? So that's what makes the NFL, that's what makes the NBA. So, so, so, so, maybe they have, they play associate, maybe, maybe, maybe it goes unionized, but, but, but, but how do you do that? Right. Right, you got to get all these students athletes to agree to be unionized. So, look, so now you just said we're going to introduce the interest may or may not be aligned. Right. So now you said we're going to unionized, which is signologists, they're an employees, which is the white elephant in the room. That's so interesting. Which I am saying that we're arguing over this because college athletics does not want to be an employer, even though they're benefiting. But they are an

1:24:14employer. But they are saying. Yeah, because they're controlling every moment and they're going to control every aspect. And, and why would they not want to do that? It brings into questions about workers come. Yeah. Well, you have payroll taxes, you have workers come, you have health insurance insurance disability, all that, which I would argue, and, and Eddie, you know, we're talking about this before we went on error. There's, there are some of the great, well, it's McGay, you know, that's one of the greatest, you know, examples of of a college athlete that was destined for greatness. I mean, just the top of the top of his leg gut cut his leg gut cut in half. Oh, it's one of those graphic. Yeah, right. And, and so what does he get for it? Well, I mean, well, it's McGay, he, right, he was, he was insured. Did he collect on the insurance policy? Well, if you collect on insurance policy, you could have played the league. And see, now we're getting it a whole different issue because that made him a professional, well, not it didn't make him a professional, but the technology wasn't ever disabled. I mean, you're not acknowledging your nostrils disabled. Yeah, I see. Okay. So, but I would argue this because there's, there, you said there was experts that

1:25:18went into that right into that evaluation in every disability policy. Right. So when, yeah, when they issue those disability policies, I mean, and again, I'm not that person that does that. No, you're not. They have experts that can project out while who the athlete is, you know, where they projected to get, you know, where the value lies, right? Where the value lies. So, so you could, if they are disabled, like, what is, you know, what are we ensuring for? So he, he decided, he decided there wasn't, if he did collect it, he would be obstructive from playing. I guess my argument with the insurance companies right now, and I have so many arguments, but it won't keep going down there, is that there, there is a swath of what Willis McGay, he was before that knee got injured, and what he used after it. And I would like to have the same experts that evaluated him before that, evaluate him afterwards, and he should be able to collect on that little bit of difference where his contact direct was and what it, what it should have been and what it is now. That's just my, my little pulpit of bourbon. What else we need to know?

1:26:18Look, well, again, you need to know moving forward that, you know, I think we're some of the schools where it will benefit prior to the health settlement, you know, starting July 1st, you know, when we were still under the kind of the pre-health settlement, you know, there was a little bit more freedom with the collectors with these student athletes, that's going to change the way that you structure your athletic departments, you know, through revshare moving forward, right? So I think that, you know, when young people say I want to be involved in sports, like, I tell people, I'm involved in pro sports as much as anybody else. And I have been for almost 25 years, it's been a tremendous ride. You find where you fit, right? So if I'm a young person and I want to, you know, maybe I'm not a division one athlete, but I want to work in a division one environment. I thought you were now, not close. My kids were. But I think you can, you can find a way in, you can be now, you know, a GM, so to speak, you know, you can crunch numbers, be an evaluator,

1:27:20you know, work in different aspects of this with a college university, or one of the third parties, or one of the marketing arms that are helping facilitate, you know, these student athletes finding opportunities. I think it's created a bold new world. And it's making student athletes think now, right? So who's the competition for these guys and these marketing type deals, right? It's the influencers, right? These are, these are, as I learned a term for my dad, and I hope she doesn't mind me saying this, but I didn't even know it existed. Maybe you guys did. NARP. Did you ever hear the word NARP? No. Non-athletic, regular person. Oh, we know a lot of those. We know a lot of those. I didn't know it. Don't say that. I mean, the way your cats advise, I didn't know it. I didn't know it. I didn't know it. That was. But those individuals who start not athletes, but you know, they're talented at other other things and, you know, academics, and they can now be involved in that sports world, just as much as the athletes.

1:28:21And there's a lot of business opportunities connecting the various pieces of this new ecosystem. Right. And the inflation should know what it's called. It's called fantasy. You can be the GM of a fantasy league. You can be the agent of a fantasy league. Well, I mean, if you look at the trends, a lot of those guys who did really well, you know, the sabermetrics wise and all the well numbers, they're getting tremendous opportunities with leagues now. They are as GMs. Right. It's getting younger and younger. But it, but it isn't, but isn't the fantasy, you know, and that was before we even brought pro sporting bet betting into play legally. Fantasy is like kind of doing that. You're picking players. So I'm excited. Yeah. Yeah. You're picking the best talent, right? And you're trying to be merging it together. Yeah. So I'm in a roster. And I think these guys are naturals, girls are naturals that are able to pick out the best talent. And there's opportunity there. And what I was going back with the influencer is, you know, the student athletes are competing with the influencers on third party opportunities. Right. Because it's brand. Right. So, you know,

1:29:24where I, you know, suggests. So the worry might have done business with Livy Dunn when she was an athlete under the statutes that you're talking about, the agreements that you're talking about. But now she's not an athlete anymore. She might be taking those dollars away from the next NCAA gymnast, right? Yeah. It doesn't have to be the gymnast when you're evaluating it. Right. Right. Livy Dunn happened to be a gymnast for LSU. Right. But like, let's say there's another influencer who has a significant social media following. And now I'm, I'm whatever, you know, actually, he's your company. And I'm like, where am I going to get the best bang for my buck? I still think she's an athlete. Right. I'm just going to put it on. She's definitely an athlete. But you're going to get the most bang for your baff right? Yeah. Very agrees. Sorry. Perry has a lot of respect for her. I mean, to, well, I mean, the truth is, you were talking about this earlier. You know, she was, she's not like necessarily a standout gymnast. She was good. But good. She was bringing in the NIL number.

1:30:26It influenced her number, her gymnastics, but, but you have to give all of those young people credit because you have to work at that. Oh, right. So people, Brad, you saw it. No, I, I thought with me. I have. When we, when, when, when, when we would finish some games and a team like Yukon, the following was unbelievable of the fans that were waiting for those young ladies to leave the gym to get autographs and everything. And they work at posting stuff on a regular and consistent basis to keep that base grung. You know, you're pulling back the curtain and showing the human side of you. And that's effort, man. That's, that's real effort. It's real effort. And you know, over the years, I've been doing the same thing. I had 250,000 followers on my completely offensively. And I got kicked off a meta because I was too offensive. I had to restart all over again and build up another 250,000 followers on funny memes. And I was a little more cognizant of their standards. And we, we build it up. It's work. It's real

1:31:27work. But what we talk about today, what did you tell me how long you spent daily on the clips, on the promotions, all that stuff? That's, I can tell you he spends all day on this. Yeah. You know, like, and that's, and that's, yeah, and that's real stuff, right? And he knows too, even our business. I mean, I'm texting you guys at night. You guys all know. But that, that's, that's how you, I'm not trying to say how you do it. But that's how you do it. You, you have to do what is necessary. They have a phone now and they could, they can monetize that name image and likeness using a phone. Right. Right. So I mean, you know, doing whatever dance you're doing, doing whatever, you know, this is my pregame routine. This is my pregame fit. Here's what I've been before. And now exactly right. And now you build a follower base. And now you're starting to tag these, these, these institutions, these businesses and saying, they're looking at it saying, wow, this guy eats my stuff before every game. And he has a million followers. That's somebody that we could do a deal with. No, Brenner. Because it's not just, I've been taking, being that I've been taking Deakin with Crocs. And I've gotten nowhere. I mean,

1:32:29just zero. Well, I think, no, with the stockings with Perry, I've gotten, maybe you should try a cardier like that. I mean, I would, I would, I would actually say after this episode, after your viewership goes up, then that Crocs deals. I promise him that much. He's counting on you. I think we need somebody to negotiate that. So I got it. So close this up for us a little bit, but land is plain land is plain back. Where do you see it? I'm going to try to, I'm going to try to suggest that Brad allow you at least two minutes without some nonsensical offshoot. Just go ahead and speak your piece. So Brad knows I wrote a editorial that I had published in the Baltimore Sun that just basically said, we need a leader. We need someone somewhere to step up, whether it's the NCA, whether it's the member institutions, whether it's federal government, whether it's everybody involved, you know, everybody coming together. But we need some kind of uniform guidance that that tries to even the playing field. You know, where do I have concerns?

1:33:32And this isn't as a lawyer. This is just as a fan of the game. It isn't the better ever is, you know, where is this going to put our mid majors and low majors? Right? You know, I mean, you know, you talk about revenue generating and you're talking about access to ticket sales sponsorship dollars, right? A media revenue. All legitimate. Well, the mid and low majors, I don't know that that they could keep up. I mean, there was an article recently, Brad, you brought this up really about redress workers, yeah, operating at a deficit, right? You know, how long they're a big ten school? You know, you're a finance guy, do you can? How long before that's unsustainable? And thank you, Bert, for sending that to me. I mean, that's a great, it's a great point of connectivity. You can have the best idea in the world. You can have people willing to fund it. If there's not a funding model that facilitates it legally, well, in everybody, right? And then you look, we get, we get a few minutes. I know that Perry just gave us the bunny ears. But I will say this, we can ask about what happens to the mid majors and the lawyers, but do we have a saying that, or are we legally bombed by what happens? We just have to deal with the results, meaning the student athletes. Yeah, well, the way I mean, it took, you know,

1:34:37a great question. And I know we talked about this a little bit in a break. But who is going to be bound unless there's a uniform law? That's right. Because when we talk about settlements, and that's where I come back. If you're not a college student athlete at the time, are you, are you not bound by the settlement? Right. So, Paris at home, your kids thinking about going to school, does this stuff apply to them? Were they really part of the settlement that any walked us through? It's a really great question. We'll figure it out. And we need a uniform law? We're going to break it. I know, we're going to break it. What happens when work disappears, when money dissolves, and when freedom becomes something you earn, not something you're born with, a new kind of power is rising, not a government, not a corporation, but the algorithm. In the algorithmic state, no jobs, no money, little freedom. Amazon best-selling author Bradley J. Martino reveals the world we're stepping into.

1:35:42A world where your reputation is computed, your opportunities are filtered, and your identity is shaped by systems that know you better than you know yourself. This is not science fiction. This is the operating manual of the future forming around us right now. If you want to understand the forces that will define power, belonging, and freedom in the decades ahead, start here. The algorithmic state, no jobs, no money, little freedom. Available now on Amazon. All right folks, thanks for sticking with us. We got the fire stoked. We got our drinks are getting low. We get a lot of good questions that we want to ask, but I think it'd be interesting. Perry has a good one that he thought was interesting. Before Perry dies, can I just make one point of clarity? Yeah, go. There's a lawyer you want to be as precise as humanly possible, and Brad asked me a question earlier, like, yeah, why they cut off the tenure, all that good stuff as it relates

1:36:47to the health settlement, so I had to look. Yeah, that tenure, no. I had to look at it. No, that's where you're still good. It's the earliest point that the planes could legally reach back and still recover anti-trust damages, which is about the statute limitations continuing to harm, and with the court would accept a defensible class period. So because it was filed in 2020, it's four years back, which is 2016. So I knew the 2016 date. I think I mentioned that. You did. Yeah, and I knew that because again, when I had three student athletes in my house, when they were able to file for, to be a part of the class for the settlement, I knew, you know, my oldest son had two years he could file for. He's, you know, 2016. He graduated 2018. So there was years in there, you know, the middle didn't matter. Service Academy, but I knew my daughter was fully in that class. So again, I just wanted, as a point of clarity, we're lawyers. We don't want to seem like running for him, but just so you guys know, this is live podcasting. So I didn't necessarily know all the questions that would come at me as prepared as I could possibly be. But that's what makes a great lawyer. Yeah, you find the, you know, I wanted to go and look because I didn't want it

1:37:50look, you know, in the real world, we're always informed because we always have the ability to prepare and do certain things. So Brad, I just wanted to answer you. Thank you. I mean, it's very important at the rack. Listen to us like that. So for the non attorneys, what you're saying is there is some legal precedent that is in play here, even though this isn't law. Well, no, that went back to the Clayton Act and when you can ask for damages as far as these types of cases, the entire case. So that's why I was filed in 2020 to four year look back 2016. That's as much as I could go back if they won in court 100%. So that I just wanted to, I just wanted to, I just wanted to put that out there because he asked me the question. And again, I like to be as informed as possible. Even though it took us to 45 minutes. And by the way, you're still not getting a Super Bowl pick. So there you go. Perry's got a great question. Very has a great question. I think a lot of people be interested to hear. Can Bunny, uh, Bunny wearing yours in his, his bunny wearing tail and stockings and size 13 solitals still get agent deals? It has nothing to do with Bunny. My question

1:38:52is the conversation around NIL always is always centered around D1 athletes. So what about D2 athletes, D3 athletes, possibly even down to the high school level? I mean, is that part of the settlement A and B is that part of the conversation moving forward? Are there, you know, incentives there to help these athletes move up possibly to D1 or, you know, how, how does that look? Is that, is that even part of the conversation? Harry, they told me you got one question. That was about five. Well, okay. But they were all very good. We've been up there. I'm talking to a bunch of attorneys here. So I have to get all very, I think I'll, I'll just kind of group it together in one way. I think, you know, for the division two, division three and an I athletes, it creates opportunity because, you know, I know from the, from the talent evaluation perspective, you know, there have been some tremendous success stories of student athletes who were at the division two,

1:39:54division three, you know, lower levels who've been able to benefit now through, you know, NIL exploitation and, you know, revshare deals and the like because they performed at the level that the division one coach felt like you could help their program. Now, I do share concern, not legal, but just, I mean, this is, you know, you have to differentiate it, you know, a lot of times say you can't take one hat off upon the other hat, but I'm a parent. Yeah, right. Social culture really might be different. I'm a parent. Yeah, going into the day. And, and, you know, if I had a student athlete that was in high school, the landscape has changed a little bit because, you know, when you're looking at a set amount of roster spots and you're looking to fill them, you know, Brad, I think you had to nail in the head, you know, you want certainty as a coach. So coaches may be more prone to evaluate student athletes in the, in the portal versus incoming high school freshmen. Well, and I think it's in fact the recruiting process that we used to know. And I think it evolved from the senior year or junior year to college. I think it's part of the

1:40:58strategy now. I, I, I, you know, I'm sure that everybody has a way of doing things in the strategy behind it, but I'm sure when you're looking at available roster spots for your, your, your, your next year's class, there may be institutions that say, or programs that say, I shouldn't say institutions because the programs are within the institution that say, all right, we want X amount of portal athletes and X amount of incoming freshmen. Just organic recruits, like organic recruits, like always, but, but, but here's the problem. I mean, here's, here's the crux of the problem when you view it that way. Nobody's bound to stay. So every year is somebody get the portal. So the problem is you could bring it a freshman and you know, traditionally with freshmen, it's a process. Very few freshmen truly play, right? That's real. Like you could look statistically, you know, the, the, the, the over and above ones are the over and above ones. But most freshmen need that adjustment to go from high school to cucks. It's different. It's right. Men and women now, right?

1:41:59True freshmen, richer freshmen. There's, there's a 23, 24 and 25 year olds versus 18 year olds. Right. Because that's, that's where we're at right now. So I get a stat. I wanted it. So my, my buddy, our buddy, Tyler Durden, Tyler Jamison, Washington DC, he's got a son who is a stud soccer player has been on, on a track straight to division one since he was eight years old. Get to get, took a gap year. He's playing in Spain. Okay. Because when he went out and started looking at big time programs, what they found out is the average age and maybe I might get the strong of a division one soccer player right now is like 23 years old. So how does a 18 year old kid who might not be as physically mature or might not be as mostly mature doesn't have as much tournament play? You know, you're getting a 22, 31 year old coming from South America, who's got a little bit of professional experience now. He's, it's, it's, it's changed the game for them. Can I say that it's not as compelling for me? Yeah. Because wasn't hockey always that way? It was, right? Right. Because hockey, you know, basketball, basketball was too, was 21 years old,

1:43:03right? Because the hockey players were playing juniors. Yeah. Before they enrolled in the college university. So it's, it's, it's exists. It's not been under the microscope. Yeah. Like, like, it is now where people see it. Now where you have players from overseas and not coming over, I mean, you could read the headlines, G-League players. I know we, that's a whole other episode. Right. But, you know, again, this is where, like, some type of pro leagues, this is where, like, some think tank, you know, some, you know, group of individuals. Well, didn't Lamar Bell try to, to, to, to perfect this with, with his sense. Oh, you're talking about Lovar Ball. Lovar Ball, man. Lovar Ball. Well, let's cut that out. I was like, lay beyond bells. I didn't know that he did this. So I thought he was boxing. Um, no. Let's, let's start that over. Cut that out there. No, we're not coming in out. Definitely. We're definitely cutting out. I don't want to stay. Yeah. You guys know? No, it was, uh, lay, uh, no, no, it was, you know, that was for, that was for a different reason. I mean, I mean, I have to use, I mean, if you want to get into it, Brad, like,

1:44:06you know, if you use Lovar Ball, you know, the NBA has a different role. It's one year removed. You got to be at a high school one year, but that's why they have, uh, uh, uh, what is it called? The ignite league, the one in Atlanta, like, the, the kids could go there and play in high school before they, you know, go. So why do you send his one son overseas? Because that stuff didn't exist at the time that he was doing. And so he wanted him to be one year removed without having to go to college. Right. So that was, that was, that was, he was doing the end round there. He was trying to do the, yeah, I mean, but there's always a work around. Yeah. Right. There's always a work around. Um, and that, you know, this, again, uh, what's the league called? I don't have an mental blocker in all figures, but it's the, the, the, the, the G league ignite team is the team from the developmental league in Atlanta. It's over time elite. That's what it is. See, over time elite now, see if leagues like that where kids can go do that year and then be eligible for the draft or do that year. They're junior year, they're senior year high school. So there's options. Those options didn't exist then. So then you had to look to work. They went, they went to Lithuania or wherever they went overseas to play in order to make them draft eligible without,

1:45:09you know, going to college and still getting great competition along the way. Um, again, I just, I, I, you know, the, the, the, the 18 year olds, the 17 year olds, it's a little more challenging now because of the way that they, this, you know, the landscape has evolved. Does it make it impossible? Just makes it as a parent, you know, it's a, you know, challenging world and how you're going to evaluate this process to give your kid the best support. Right. And the best resources to achieve that goal. Because this is what I told everybody. Everybody could remember at the end of the day. And I, and I think why NIL is so very important to certain athletes. Professional sports aren't guaranteed to anyone. That's the one percent of the one percent. Right? Yeah, that's a very small one. So for some of these individuals, this is the time of the largest amount of earning capacity that they have. Right. Think about it. Some of these kids are making, you know, high six figures as college students and they may not be a pro. And you set them up to be professionals. They have freedom to invest in

1:46:14themselves when they realize that free. Think, think, think about a kid. And I just, this is, this is, this is real stuff. It's real stuff. That gets a freshman as an 18-year-old. It's a really healthy rev share deal. Right. And there's not, you know, you can keep your expenses down. You've been living modest. You can continue to live modest. You put that in a Roth or a 401k or one of those types of investment plans. When you're 18. No, right. Think about it. When you're 18. Right. And have the capability. Now you live your life. You're not a pro. You go and you work for whatever corporate institution or whatever you're going to do with your life's work after college. No college debt. That money you threw in there when you were 18. Now you're 42, 43, 45 years old. It's real money. You can be done. Right. If it's handled the right way, you could be done. So, this is, this is really, really life-changing stuff. So, I get, again, we could have a whole another episode on. We should. You know, ability, right? Because we should know the eligibility cases, right? There's a reason people were like, it's like, you know, you leave the party,

1:47:16they close the doors, you want to get back into party, right? There's a reason that you have individuals that are out the game that now they want back into game. They want back into college. Because they see the earning opportunities are greater remaining in college than leaving college. Whereas before, there was no incentive for these young men and women to stay. You know, what I think is another great episode that we have to bring you back. I don't know if we can entice you is, is how do we protect these young athletes that are so young? In many of us at that age, do we really know what to do with a Roth IRA or do we really know what to? Oh, I mean, financial literacy, right? That can be in and of itself. I mean, I, you know, again, I don't want to get on any kind of soapbox. And, you know, again, but I think you're, I think it's an important message because we've seen athletes. Well, we try to point. So, you know, again, I'm an attorney, not a financial advisor, not a psychologist, not anything else, but you have it. But you do play all of them at one point. Wow. But what I do is I, I'm able to assist and help direct them to the right service professionals

1:48:20that can provide them the right answer. Help them ask the right question. Right. I'm not telling you who to use, but I could say here are 10 people. We could help you do some research to figure out if they're, you know, competent or not. If they know, based on their accreditation and whatnot, and they have to make those own individual decisions. I'm not advising them to do that, you know. Right. Give legal advice, not business advice. I can't. But, you know, financial literacy is a big part of, you know, this process, understanding, put the right team of people around you, which the lawyer is one of those people. Yes. You should get the finance guy. You should get the biggest one in my opinion, tax guy. Like, because, you know, it's funny. You know, you look at athletes, you know, you know, depending on how you spend your money, you know, you may or may not, you know, have money for the next season or whatnot. You know, it happens constantly. The issue for student athletes is if you don't understand taxes in your 1099, you know, you're not spending the whole of that, you know, that amount that you're receiving. Right. So if you're a, let's just use a round number. If it's $100,000 and then I'm not a tax guy,

1:49:23but let's say your tax liability is 40. I mean, you can only spend 60 of the, in the 40s, got to go to the government in some way, shape, or form. 1099, just talk about it. But if you spend the entire 100, you have a tax liability, you know, if you don't understand it, right? You just put your home. So now the student athlete is fighting for that next aisle deal, because they need a big portion of it to pay last year's tax liability. Yeah. And you're making my case for the whole employer designation of the NCA to begin with. I can't wait to watch your episode when you discuss that. So let me ask you to close this up. If you were able to offer parents or young athletes, who are looking at this process at some point in their future, whether they're engaged in or not, whether it's realistic or not, if you could offer them a little bit of advice, simply, what might that be? If you don't know, ask the questions. Go find help. Go find help. Find the right people. If you know somebody, you know somebody who knows somebody. It's always fine. People always think it's easier and it's easier than it is. I can use chat GPT.

1:50:28I can use co-pilot. I can figure this out. There's nothing like scars, like from being in the trenches, from going through the wars, where I relate is, again, when people say, well, how did you do it? Why did you do it? Because I was a parent of a kid who had to do it. So I know. And I've learned. And use those lessons that we've learned along the way and we've been able to figure out along the way to be a value for you. And again, you mentioned, and I'm going to mention his name again, to keep him in the mix, but like a guy like Dave Franklin, there's a lot of competent individuals out there that are good at doing this. They're buying them. And they were talked about. They're not going to take your money. They're not going to do something otherwise. But as an 18-year-old or a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old, you have to have the right folks around you giving you the advice as to where to go because these are life-changing decisions you're making. And this is not a static environment. They're operating it, right? This is changing by the day.

1:51:29So it's fluid. It's fluid. So you want people on your team. Again, call me crazy. I wake up every morning reading articles about this stuff. I got to bed every night reading articles about this stuff. I'm just trying to keep up, right? But again, I'm not doing some saying, you know, I just love it. Like, I want to know how this is evolving. Even if I wasn't doing it, I probably still be figuring out how this is evolving, just because of a passion for the industry. But again, fortunately, I mean, I mean, it's not quite that, but I'm a transactional lawyer by trade. And everybody has to remember that this is business, right? So it's just the type of businesses this changes, but this is business. That's awesome. That brings us full circle. He's an AI executive. He's an attorney. I'm a business guy. I work in the markets. Deal with money. We try to bring you experts who work in this world. They can bring you real insights. They can help you learn. Hopefully, that was super valuable. I know we realized

1:52:30we've been super valuable for me. I mean, I learned a lot, even as we're talking. Yeah, maybe maybe we got we unearthed more questions than we answered, but I'll tell you what, we're not, we're not done with this. Eddie, no, thanks for that bottle, man. Thank you, man. This is good. So much love in the room. This is pit law, buddy. It's pit law. That's right. I mean, and it's great about this is that we have relationships to extend far beyond these walls. This is our friend group here. I mean, we didn't we didn't pay Eddie. We didn't email them. We, you know, it's just like, hey, you want to come on and talk about the thing you're best at. This is an example of what we're going to do every week as often as we can about as many topics as possible. Thanks so much. Yeah. Yeah, that's out. It's a relevant topic too. Yeah, totally. And I know it's 100% right now. And anybody that's reading the sports, they're, they're talking about in the home. So look, thanks for sticking with us through this conversation. Fires getting low, bottles getting low. Our eyes are getting red. Thank you for tuning in.

1:53:33Better with bourbon. Thank you, Eddie. Anything you want to leave a soft with? Now, this is, this is excellent. Thank you for the invite. Thanks for being here. Whenever you guys need me, I'm here. We're pretty sure coming on, Eddie. Cheers everybody. Cheers everybody. Everything's always better with bourbon. This has been The Better with Bourbon Podcasts with Brad Martino and Deakin Palmer. New episodes drop weekly. Be sure to subscribe or follow us. The views and opinions shared on The Better with Bourbon Podcasts are our own and those of our guests. Nothing we discuss should be taken as financial, legal, business, or gambling advice. Don't make investment, business, or betting decisions based on our conversations as you should always talk to a qualified professional. Always drink responsibly, never drink and drive, and only consume alcohol if you are of legal drinking age.